I jumped down and within seconds was back at the window with an open-end wrench from Gladys's tool kit in my hand. As I picked away at the edges of the glass, hard wedges of putty broke off with surprisingly little effort. It was almost too easy.
When I had chipped my way round the pane, I pressed my mouth hard against the glass, and sucked for all I was worth to create a vacuum. Then I pulled my head slowly back.
Success! As the pane came free of its frame and leaned out towards me, I grasped the glass by its rough edges and lifted it carefully to the ground. In less time than it takes to tell, I had wiggled through the frame and dropped to the floor inside.
Although the broken glass from my earlier rescue had been cleared away, the place still gave me the shivers. I wasted no time in finding the issues of
Although Robin's exact dates hadn't been carved on his headstone, Sally's story indicated that he had died sometime after the harvest in that year.
Directly below this was printed the notice:
Miss Cool was the postmistress and purveyor of sweets to the village, and there was only one reason I could think of that she would have closed her shop on a Friday.
I turned eagerly to the following week: the issue of 14 September.
And that was all. It seemed obvious that the village wanted to spare Robin's parents the grief of seeing the horrid details in print.
A quick look through the remaining papers turned up nothing more than a brief notice of the funeral, at which the pallbearers had been Gordon Ingleby, Bartram Tennyson (Robin's grandfather, who had come down from London), Dieter Schrantz, and Clarence Mundy, the taxicab proprietor. Rupert's name was not mentioned.
I replaced the newspapers in their cradle and, with no more damage to myself than a scuffed knee, shoehorned myself back out of the window.
Curses! It was beginning to rain. A black-bottomed cloud had drifted across the sun, bringing a sudden chill to the air.
I ran across the weeded lot to the river, where fat raindrops were already pocking the water with perfectly formed little craters. I scrambled down the slope and, with my bare hands, scooped out a gob of the sticky clay that formed the bank.
Then back to the Pit Shed again, where I dumped the muck in a mound on the windowsill. Taking care not to get any of it on my clothing, I rolled handfuls of the stuff between my palms, making a family of long stringy gray snakes. Then, clambering up onto the rusty motor once again, I seized the edges of the windowpane, and hoisted it gingerly back into position. With my forefinger as a makeshift putty knife, I pressed the stuff all round the edges of the glass into what looked, at least, like a tight and sturdy seal.
How long it would last was anybody's guess. If the rain didn't wash it away, it might well last forever. Not that it would need to: At the first opportunity, I thought, I would replace it by pinching some bona fide putty and the proper knife from Buckshaw, where Dogger was forever using the stuff to shore up loose panes in the decaying greenhouse.
After a quick dash to the river to scrub the caked clay from my hands, I was, aside from being soaked through, almost presentable.
I picked up Gladys from the grass and strolled in a carefree manner up Cow Lane to the high street, as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth.
Miss Cool's confectionery, which incorporated the village post office, was a narrow Georgian relic, hemmed in by a tearoom and an undertaker's establishment to the east and a fish shop to the west. Its flyblown display windows were sparsely strewn with faded chocolate boxes, their lids picturing plump ladies in striped stockings and feathers who grinned brazenly as they sat half astride cumbersome three-wheeled tricycles.
This was where Ned had bought the chocolates he had left on our doorstep. I was sure of it, for there on the right was the dark rectangular mark where the box had reposed since horse-drawn charabancs had rumbled past it in the high street.
For a fleeting instant I wondered if Feely had sampled my handiwork yet, but I banished the thought at once. Such pleasures would have to wait.
The bell over the door tinkled to announce my entrance, and Miss Cool looked up from behind the post office counter.
'Flavia, dear!' she said. 'What a pleasant surprise. Why, you're all wet! I was just thinking about you not ten minutes ago, and here you are. Actually, it was your father I was thinking of, but it's all the same, isn't it? I've a strip of stamps here that might interest him: four Georges with an extra perforation clean through his face. Hardly seems right, does it? Quite disrespectful. Miss Reynolds over at Glebe House bought them last Friday and returned them on Saturday.
''Too many holes in them!' she said. 'I won't have my letters to Hannah--' (that's her niece in Shropshire, dear)--'being seized for infringement of the Postal Act.''
She handed me a glassine envelope.
